1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for providing messenger service, and more particularly, to a system and method for providing a messenger service for indicating messenger status information of messenger service subscribers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a messenger service is frequently used for communicating and exchanging content between remote users through a communication network.
The messenger service provides messenger service subscribers with a function of indicating messenger status information together with communication functions, such as, message transmission, file sharing, chatting, video conference, etc., between the messenger service subscribers. Messenger status information of a subscriber indicates a current status of the subscriber using messenger service, for example, an on-line status showing that a subscriber is connected to a network, a temporarily away status showing that a subscriber has temporarily left his/her terminal, and a busy status showing that a subscriber is busy conducting other tasks, etc.
A messenger server stores subscriber messenger status information in real-time in order to provide the messenger status information of the subscribers. Here, each subscriber's messenger status information is selectively stored by the subscriber from among pre-determined messenger status information. The messenger server informs other subscribers, which have previously registered the subscriber in their contact lists, of the subscriber's stored messenger status information. Then, the other subscribers can recognize current status of the subscriber through the messenger status information.
However, the prior art method described above indicating messenger status information, cannot inform detailed status of a subscriber if there are relatively few messenger status records to choose from. Also, the prior art method has disadvantages that the messenger status information must be directly changed by the subscribers each time their status is changed.